At this point, we have probably all heard of “indicted for seven damn years now” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's brave efforts to dodge a process server trying to serve him with a subpoena. But hearing about it is not enough. It's important to also make fun of him, because Jeebus, this dude is going all-in trying to portray himself as having barely dodged some of the rampant violence going on down in Texas these days.
He didn't face anything as scary as the average Texas public school student is asked to put up with, mind you. But he's still going to play the victim here because, and I cannot stress this patriotically enough, a process server showed up at his house.
You can see why a (checks notes) state attorney general who's long been under indictment for general crookedness would be absolutely bewildered by such an event. Yes, this may be Ken Paxton's very first run-in with the American legal system since, uh, whenever he last phoned his own office. And it's got him completely shaken up. Truly, never has anyone suffered more.
Paxton took to Twitter to tweet his victimhood, and you'll have to bear with him if his own statement bears little to no relation to what actually appears to have happened. In estimating which version of events is the more accurate one, note that the process server's testimony of what happened was submitted under oath, and Ken Paxton's version was, again, submitted as Twitter-burped press release. So you know this is gonna be good.
Paxton:
"This made-up controversy around serving me a subpoena is nothing more than a shameless stunt from my political opponents—a stunt that a federal judge dismissed today by quashing the subpoena. Here are the facts: a strange man came up to my property at home, yelled unintelligibly, and charged toward me. I perceived this person to be a threat because he was neither honest nor upfront about his intentions."
Now, it would be wonderful if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was willing to say the same sentences under oath or, say, produce security camera footage backing up his claims, but what we know from the court records that have been submitted paints a different picture. The process server reports he knocked on the door, only to be told by Paxton's wife that Ken was on the phone and couldn't speak to him. The server waited outside, where a black Chevy Tahoe soon pulled up to presumably take the attorney general to do some attorney generaling: the process server approached him to serve the subpoenas, upon which ol' Ken bolted back inside his house, presumably worried he was going to get a paper cut.
After 20 minutes of further waiting, Ken's wife came out, opened the rear door of another Chevy parked in the driveway, got in the passenger seat, and started the truck. The attorney general of Texas then emerged from a door "inside the garage" and "ran" to the open truck door, ignoring the process server and his subpoenas, and then Ken's wife bravely drove away.
Now, to you, I, and the process server who presumably has been around the block a few times and is pretty damn familiar with people frantically dodging being served with legal papers, this all looks like a bizarrely pathetic attempt to dodge being served with legal papers. But to Indicted For Seven Damn Years Now Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, it was a harrowing experience involving a "strange man" who "yelled" and "charged."
After speaking with his wife, leaving his business card, waiting outside the house, identifying himself again when Ken finally appeared, and so forth. Not too many charging men go to the effort to leave a business card identifying as a process server with the wife before they do their "unintelligible" yelling and charging and document-holding, so it's nice to see politeness hasn't fully died out in Texas. Still, though, Ken here couldn't decipher from all that that the man was simply a delivery guy trying to serve court documents, and apparently instead decided he should wet every pair of pants he owned.
"In light of the constant threats against me, for which dangerous individuals are currently incarcerated, I take a number of common sense precautions for me and my family's safety."
For example, when Ken sees a "dangerous individual" who is no doubt another part of the "constant threats" around him, he sends his wife out to start the car so that he can run out of the house slightly faster than he could if he had to start it himself. Take that, dangerous individual! Didn't expect me to send my wife out to face your dangerous wrath, did ya!
Anyhoo, the rest of Ken's statement consists of braggadocio suggesting that the court's process server is darn lucky Ken didn't just murder him, which Ken totally would have done if his wife wasn't there to face the scary court man on her own. "Given that this suspicious and erratic man charged me son my own private property [after knocking on my door and handing my wife his business card while explaining why he was here], he is lucky this situation did not escalate further or necessitate force. As leaders across America, from elected officials to Supreme Court Justices, face unprecedented threats of politically motivated violence [see: Trump-backed attempted coup that saw armed anti-government militias scouring the halls of the Capitol in an attempt to kidnap or kill Trump-named enemies], I believe this type of behavior utilized by radical activists is thoroughly disgusting and should be met with swift condemnation [...]"
Dude, you ran from a process server. It's the rote delivery of a court-ordered subpoena that you're freaking out over as the work of "radical activists."
You're telling me the Texas attorney general never served a subpoena against anyone, in all his still-indicted years of work? That this is Ken's first experience with that thoroughly terrifying bit of American life known as "hey buddy, got some papers for you?"
This is the thing that Ken is trying to play off as the work of RaDIcAL EmNITiES, something super-duper close to political terrorism?
Dude. Buddy. There aren't enough words in American English to explain to you how pathetic that sounds. And that's the thing about Republicans, and Texas Republicans in particular. They're all about the tough-guy stance, when it comes to dishing out terrifying experiences for all the little people they have contempt for. There's nothing wrong with carrying assault rifles outside of public schools. How dare you get pissed off at a heavily-armed mob of terrorist-looking "patriots" wandering into whatever business establishment they want to, in the great state of Shoot First Ask Later.
If you're a woman in Texas, Ken here has a law for you saying any man in Texas can stalk you, as much as they want, combing through your online data or following you home from doctor's offices or photographing your license plate if you head across the Texas border for some reason, all so that any man in Texas can try their hand at claiming a reward if they catch you or someone around you "abetting" an abortion.
But you, Ken? You get a legal subpoena, and you piss your pants, scurry for cover and make your wife go out to warm up the car for you.
You gutless little baby. You pathetic, spineless little twerp. A single process server comes to your door and hands your wife a business card, and you melt the hell down like you've just been targeted by Chucky or Freddy or the chainsaw guy. You would never make it in a fourth-grade classroom. Do you have any idea, any at all, what the laws say a fourth-grader in your state has to put up with?
Hey Ken, ever had state authorities knock on your door asking to interview your kid because they're not acting enough like a "boy" at school, and the state needs to decide whether your parenting is to blame? Never had that happen?
Baby.
Ken Paxton is a big, tough guy when he's got a wife willing to start his car for him. He's the picture of manly conservative manliness when he's telling the women of Texas that, from now on, they're gonna be the up-close-and-personal targets of a movement responsible for more domestic terrorism than any other. He's a real stud, when it comes to backing up Texas Republican efforts to station other people at the border and leave them there, high and dry and unpaid, so that Republicans can say they're "protecting" things.
But he can't handle the same subpoenas that he says every woman in Texas should expect to receive if a bunch of domestic terrorists think they've done something suspicious.
God, what a gutless little weasel Indicted For Seven Damn Years Now Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton turns out to be, yet again. What a spineless little turd.
And now he's trying to make up for his show of gutless panic by putting out a super-statement saying the process server was a "yelling" "radical activist" who "charged" him and threatened to make him read shit, and that, well, this time Ken was bein' nice, but the next time an officer of the court tries to serve him with a subpoena in the same manner as every other goddamn person in Texas, then maybe next time, Ken will shoot them dead.
Yeah, the attorney general of Texas is suggesting that it's all right to kill process servers. Of course he is. He's a cheap little crook who's risen to his cheap little post because Republicanism only awards big cowards with even bigger mouths.
What. A. Baby.
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